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strombolibones's reviews
270 reviews
She's Always Hungry by Eliza Clark
4.5
Build A Body Like Mine
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
The Problem Solver
🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
She's Always Hungry
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗
The Shadow Over Chitaly
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗
Hollow Bones (I gotta reread this one)
❓❓❓❓❓
Goth GF
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗
Extinction Event
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
Nightstalkers
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
Shake Well
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
The King
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕
Company Men
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
The Problem Solver
🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
She's Always Hungry
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗
The Shadow Over Chitaly
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗
Hollow Bones (I gotta reread this one)
❓❓❓❓❓
Goth GF
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗
Extinction Event
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
Nightstalkers
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
Shake Well
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
The King
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕
Company Men
🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
Sunrise On The Reaping by Suzanne Collins
1.0
Really bummed about how this one panned out. It started out as a 3, QUICKLY worked its way up to a 4.5..... And ended with a 1.
I have 3 gripes:
1) All the callbacks to the 1st and 2nd books were cool at first, but as I got further, they felt more like treading the same ground.
2) This one's not as damning, but using a naming convention like "Lucy Grey" and "Lenore Dove" is fine except WHY are they referred to as that full name every single time? Never "Lucy," never "Lenore," only ever "Lenore Dove." I miss Lenore Dove. I wonder how Lenore Dove is doing. I remember a time when Lenore Dove and I were....etc. Eyeball reading I'm sure it's be fine but having to hear the full name every time was so annoying. Doesn't bother me in His Dark Materials, but I assume that's because Serafina Pekkala is sick as hell, and she's not mentioned every 10 minutes. Apparently this happens IRL too, and.... I don't like it lol.
3) I think the first 2 issues would have been mostly overlooked if this one hadn't happened. I absolutely could not believe my ears when three characters died in almost the EXACT same way.
FULL:
- Haymitch runs into his friend and they party up
- The ally goes off-screen for a second
- Haymitch hears screams and comes running
- Ally is dead
- Haymitch is sad
This was also the case with his family and Lenore Dove, basically. Homie had it rough.
Felt like I was stuck in fucking Groundhog Day.
If there was some sort of thematic reason for this, it was completely lost on me. I pretty much checked out after that, but then the last 2 chapters that were full ofPoetry sealed the deal.
Didn't like the narrator either, but YMMV.
Glad everybody is loving this book so much, I wish this was the case for me.
I have 3 gripes:
1) All the callbacks to the 1st and 2nd books were cool at first, but as I got further, they felt more like treading the same ground.
2) This one's not as damning, but using a naming convention like "Lucy Grey" and "Lenore Dove" is fine except WHY are they referred to as that full name every single time? Never "Lucy," never "Lenore," only ever "Lenore Dove." I miss Lenore Dove. I wonder how Lenore Dove is doing. I remember a time when Lenore Dove and I were....etc. Eyeball reading I'm sure it's be fine but having to hear the full name every time was so annoying. Doesn't bother me in His Dark Materials, but I assume that's because Serafina Pekkala is sick as hell, and she's not mentioned every 10 minutes. Apparently this happens IRL too, and.... I don't like it lol.
3) I think the first 2 issues would have been mostly overlooked if this one hadn't happened. I absolutely could not believe my ears when three characters died in almost the EXACT same way.
FULL:
- The ally goes off-screen for a second
- Haymitch hears screams and comes running
- Ally is dead
- Haymitch is sad
This was also the case with his family and Lenore Dove, basically. Homie had it rough.
Felt like I was stuck in fucking Groundhog Day.
If there was some sort of thematic reason for this, it was completely lost on me. I pretty much checked out after that, but then the last 2 chapters that were full of
Didn't like the narrator either, but YMMV.
Glad everybody is loving this book so much, I wish this was the case for me.
End of Watch by Stephen King
3.5
Tl;dr - I loved the protagonist POV chapters, and really did not like the villain POV chapters.
For some reason, SK chose to have our protagonists piece together a certain aspect of the puzzle, and then in the next (flashback) chapter show the villain's POV as he does those very things they just worked out. This is the format for the whole book and I found it incredibly annoying. Fortunately, those chapters were short, and "the whole book" amounts to like 4 instances of that occurring, and the villain chapters were much shorter, but I feel like I could have skipped them all and been totally fine.
The ending was terrific, for both the book and the trilogy, and as such I'm happy I decided to read this one, so idk maybe this is a 4.0 but at the moment I'm sticking with 3.5
Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane
4.5
This 6th book was written AND takes place 10 years after book 5, and serves as both the conclusion to the Kenzie and Genarro series as well as a sort of Coda to the events of book 4 (*Gone, Baby, Gone*).
The shortest book by a sizeable margin (8 hours vs the usual 13ish) I'm not really sure why it's rated so much lower than the other 5 books, that made me pretty wary when I started, but it seemed par for the course for most of it, until the ending which I thought was outstanding for both the series and book 4.
I'd give it 5 Stars as I was sobbing by the end, but the start did feel a little weird, not quite sure why. I may just have to adjust my ratings for 3 and 5 down to a 4, as honestly I had a hard time recalling what happened in them 😬
I also found it hilarious that Jonathan Davis chose to affect a Boston accent for this one when he didn't do it for the first 5 books lmao.
Overall I'd give the series a solid 4.5, huge rec, and as expected I'm already missing K&G quite a bit.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Themes like Dissociative identity Disorder/Stockholm Syndrome, Trauma, and Plato's Allegory of the Cave.
4.0
On one hand this was a very impressive piece of writing with some heavy themes that I (for once) picked up on. They're unfortunately rife with spoilers so:
FULL SPOILERS
On the other hand, I've definitely seen this type of story done before. Specifically, in one particular piece of media that I won't name because it's one of my favorites and it would spoil both of them if I did. IYKYK.
So unfortunately that tends to take away from my experience, especially when the other piece of media does it better (imo).
Still, this was really good, I enjoyed myself, it just lost me a bit in the falling action, mostly because of the comparison that I couldn't help to make.
Chiwetel Ejiofor absolutely crushed the narration, too.
Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey
4.5
Book 3 was a bit of a letdown for me so I put this series on pause for longer than I should have, because if this one was "mid" I'm in for a wild ride with Nemesis Games.
Enjoyed this quite a bit more than 3, exclusively because a certain POV was absent. Unfortunately I know that trend won't continue, but I have high hopes that it won't affect my enjoyment of future books much.
No complaints here, just didn't quite hit that crazy high for me that 1 and 2 did.
It reaches out.
Prayers for Rain by Dennis Lehane
4.0
Not as good as 4 (expected) but I don't really get the low reviews on this one. Thoroughly enjoyed the ride, and enjoying my time spent with K&G immensely, I'm gonna miss them dearly once I finish the 6th and final book in a week or two 💔
If you like thrillers, read this series folks
If you like thrillers, read this series folks